


next steps

by orphan_account



Series: could've been [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: :'), Angst, Coffee Shop, F/M, Jjbek, M/M, They talk, not really - Freeform, ok kind of yes there is angst in every single item in this series who am i kidding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 17:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14898554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “I never thought that you and Otabek … Well, I had the thought, when he was staying with your family,” Bella says. “You know, wondering. Sometimes you get an irrational thought, right? An impulse for something incredibly out of character? Well, psychology says that’s just your brain testing itself.”JJ holds to let her keep speaking. He tries to look at her straight.“But I guess I never asked you,” she sighs. “That would’ve been the real test.”





	next steps

When they sit down, JJ with his coffee and Bells with her tea, they don’t even need to speak the question.

 

_Are we going to try to put us back together?_

 

It's been some weeks since the ring came off her hand. She has never been one to get mad and storm off or lash out. JJ waited for her text, and she texted him when she was ready to talk; JJ's been sore lonely, and his body and feet prove every day that training to skate is the one thing holding him together right now, because nothing else in his life is. Now she's here, so they can make the final decision. She looks at him and her dark eyes are deep and beautiful.

 

“We’re as close as friends can get,” she says, smiling like it’s already over. Well, it is, isn’t it? He’s too weak and afraid; his hand has gone to rest in hers and her other hand has moved to lay on top.  JJ nods. Briefly, Bella’s eyes flick back and away, throat moves like it almost can’t say what’s next. “But we’re the most distant lovers,” she finishes sadly. “I’ve always thought it, but . . . I supposed it was us both being proper.”

 

JJ swallows, hard, because he’s known this for a long time. Hasn’t he always hidden behind the promise of _something more?_ Hasn’t he always been a good Catholic boy? Holding hands, never anything more than a dinner date or a walk downtown in the first snow. Did he ever enjoy those outings? Well, he much preferred when they would spend late nights working on the clothes label and watching dumb YouTube videos, or when they would all go skiing with the group, or camping, or exploring cities that hosted skating competitions; when they were best of friends. Don’t lovers have to be friends first? But the ring was a mistake, and it mars his record; he hasn’t done right by anyone.

 

Her smile quivers and falters as she glances down, dark hair swinging.

 

“You can tell me everything. Everything you’ve ever thought. About me. About us,” he rushes, hungry for her to get closure, because that’s the best he can do now.

 

Bella sighs. It seems like their time apart, since she took the ring off, has hardened the sadness in the air between them, so it could almost be called tension, but their hearts are still too warm for that.

 

“I never thought that you and Otabek … Well, I had the thought, when he was staying with your family,” Bella says. The admission is sour to JJ’s ears. “You know, wondering. Sometimes you get an irrational thought, right? An impulse for something incredibly out of character? Well, psychology says that’s just your brain testing itself.”

 

JJ holds to let her keep speaking. He tries to look at her straight.

 

“But I guess I never asked you,” she sighs. “That would’ve been the real test.” She looks back up into JJ’s eyes and he struggles to hold their gaze, so honest it might cut. “You were so happy. No, you’re still usually happy … While he was here. Training. Content. There, that’s it. You were content. I mean … I guess I thought you just grew up after that. We can’t all be kids forever.”

 

JJ squeezes his hand in hers. He’s fucked up so bad. All he knows is he wants what he shouldn’t have.

 

Bella’s brow tightens. “But you don’t need to know what _I_ thought about you, about us.” JJ can fill in the blanks: _no, instead, what_ he _thinks, what_ he’s _thought._ “JJ, I deserve the truth.” This is said quietly.

 

“He got sent home cause Maman and Papa found about the DJing and parties, right?” JJ starts off.

 

Bella nods.

 

“Well, he _did_ take me along, like Maman and Papa concluded. I went along. I liked him. I figured it out,” he says. _Figured it out –_ there’s a spark of pride that quickly twists itself into some mockery of those months that were so perfect, that he thought would last forever. “In the change rooms after practice … We never really did any thing but we slept together too j–just didn’t do anything … All we ever did was jerk off to each other -- _for each other_   -- I think we knew what was good for us, to stop before – before we got in too – too deep – but I already, I still  _am_ –” JJ chokes. He has to hold himself together. They’re not engaged anymore. This is a friend who he’s talking to now, and she’ll only _ever_ be his friend now. They’re never getting back together. They’re not putting it back together! (But was it every really anything?)

 

Everything is a terrifying unknown. The quietly busy atmosphere of the coffee shop and bright lighting seems like just virtual reality around him, him and Bella. They’re back on home turf, between competitions again, but maybe next time, Bella won’t be coming along.  So is this all just a virtual reality that she’s even here, talking with him?

 

She _did_ tell him to talk to God, last time they really talked. That’s all a scribble, and it makes his head hurt; one thing’s yes and another no, and it’s too tiring to try and figure it out. It’s too much!

 

JJ realizes he’s been quiet for some time. He snaps back to attention.

 

“You’ve told me, but have you told Alain and Nathalie?” Bella says. Even now, if JJ is reading her correctly, and he can, after all their years together, she’s sympathetic, she can see some of this struggle and grasp how long it’s stayed tangled in JJ’s head, and grown to be between them.

 

Has he told his parents?

 

Dumbly, he shakes his head _no_. “They’re going to send me to therapy if—” he starts, sounding more pained and frightened, even, than he’d intended to. “I’m so sorry—” He’s not sure who he’s apologizing to, besides Bella, for the millionth time. Is he crying? He’d _better_ not be crying, in the middle of this nice independent coffee shop that’s been Bella’s favorite ever since it opened when she was 15 and JJ took her there the day after they had all gone out for ice cream with the crew and he’d held Bella’s hand, and looked at Otabek and felt some kind of destiny for the first time – not with Bella, with –

 

But now she’s wiping tears off his cheeks. He can’t take that, so he buries his face in his hands.

 

“Maybe you should go so they don’t have to send you,” she says, in a lighter tone. JJ sniffs back tears through the cracks between his fingers. “Not because there’s anything wrong in the way they might think. But because you could talk to someone,” she says. “How long has it been since you went to your regular counsellor?”

 

JJ sighs and rubs his eyes and cheeks, tiredly taking his hands away from his face. “I don’t need to, I take my meds and it’s all good,” he tries to deflect.

 

“Not this,” Bella says warningly.

 

“Not this,” JJ agrees.

 

There’s a long silence and JJ notices his coffee. Might be a couple eyelashes and a few tears in it by now. He sips it. Still a bit hot, but not any worse for wear. Bella follows suit, pulling the triangle teabag out of her cup and trying her tea.

 

“It’s good?” JJ asks.

 

Bella nods.

 

The silence resumes. A few people with laptops out who have been talking animatedly a couple tables away pack up and leave. A mother and two young kids enter; the barista is called to attention.

 

“I cheated on you,” JJ blurts.

 

It’s not a confession; it’s a re-examination, it’s the conclusion of the investigation into what started all of this.

 

Bella looks at him over the top of her cup.

 

“I cheated on you,” JJ repeats. This is one of the many thoughts worming its way through his head, tearing up any other thought process wanting to make itself useful. “I should have told you. Beks said he didn’t care, until he did. But you and I were just going out, and Beks and I were just – so I didn’t even think it was cheating ‘cause it was just doing what I loved doing, the whole time, skating and –” _God, he’s choking up, his breathing’s not working so well –_ “—and I couldn’t tell M—maman and Papa s—so I didn’t think of telling – I wasn’t t—trying to lie to you or anything I just didn’t think of it –” -- _where’s his vision going, time to breathe,_ breathe, he tells himself like he tries to do _\--_

 

Bella shushes him at this point. She half-stands and leans over the table to take his head between her lovely, lovely hands. He shakes and tries to pull his vision back, tries to narrow it on her.

 

“Look, JJ, listen. Listen, OK? That’s better.” He starts to calm down until she’s in focus again and he’s holding himself steady enough to follow directions and listen. _Takes meds on the regular, but worse than it ever was when he was younger._ “We were just boyfriend and girlfriend. We were in high school. Cheating could be going to buy taco-in-a-bag and standing one person closer to someone else. Nothing meant that much, JJ.”

 

He breathes in. Can he speak again? An anxious shudder in his lungs, but it’ll work. “It doesn’t change it!” he protests.

 

“I don’t think it would have changed anything if you told me,” Bella continues calmly. “And it . . . needed to happen,” she says softly. “Just . . . I wish you would have come to terms with this sooner.”

 

JJ nods miserably in agreement.

 

“There’s probably no way Beks would ever . . . it’s been so long . . . so –”

 

“That doesn’t matter at all, JJ. What matters is _you –”_ she pushes his hair back from his eyes, “you, have learned something about yourself, and you’re better for this, or you will be.”

 

God, he doesn’t deserve her.

 

Maybe that’s why things have come to this. It’s only fair.

 

“Look at me, JJ, and tell me this isn’t about _him._ It has to be about you,” Bella says, wanting a confirmation, apparently, upon JJ’s silence.

 

It’s not that he’s unsure about the answer, it’s that it’s hard to say.

 

She’s still leaning in close.

 

JJ _wishes_ he wanted her, that way.

 

“No, I – I’ve been thinking about this for a long time in the back of my head, and I don’t like who I’m supposed to like how I’m supposed to like – and I tried thinking about women and I couldn’t ever _do it_ with – it’s pretty disgusting –” The words are out, and a face is made, before JJ can take it back. Then he realizes how it might seem. “Sorry I mean—” he rushes, but Bella’s already laughing. “I don’t mean _you’re_ disgusting,” he protests.

 

Bella’s laughing so hard she plops back down in her chair and pushes it back to balance on two legs. Meanwhile, JJ can feel his face heating and people glancing at the ruckus.

 

JJ’s embarrassment quickly changes to incredulity as Bella continues laughing, supporting herself with one arm and wiping tears away with the other hand.

 

“I’m sorry, ahaha, it’s not that funny, I think I just needed to laugh about it,” she manages, catching her breath.

 

 _Wish I could,_ JJ thinks, but the corner of his mouth torques up in a bit of a grin at Bella.

 

“Well,” Bella says, calming down and leaning with her elbows on the table, pushing her cup of tea aside. “Good thing we decided to save it for marriage.” She makes a motion in the air at _marriage,_ as if to say, _how ridiculous!_ A straggling giggle follows.

 

“Sorry for leading you on,” JJ says, because he still can’t laugh, “and for everything.”

 

“Me too,” Bella says, sounding more serious. “I’m sorry too.” She sighs. “But not all the way. We’ll be better, you know,” Bella nods.

 

“OK,” JJ agrees, because that’s what’s good for him.

 

“This isn’t an end. This is your beginning.”

 

JJ nods.

 

“It’s going to be hard.”

 

_Nod._

“You have to tell people.”

 

_Nod._

 

“You have to work it out with the family, with your friends . . . “

 

“—with Otabek,” JJ finishes before Bella has to say it.

 

She gives him a bit of a tilt of the head, a bit of a nod, _you know it._

 

“And you’re going to have to be strong enough to do it.”

 

 _Without me_ is implied. Or, at least, not as much with her as it would’ve been if this had all not happened.

 

“Am I strong?” JJ says, phrasing it half-rhetorically, because his soul is so strained it would reassure to have the answer, even if were false.

 

Bella smiles, her beautiful red lips stretching. She’s no farther from JJ than she’s ever been, but now it all looks different; it was only an illusion that made them seem so close for so long. She stands up, pushes her chair back in, takes her bag off the back of it.

 

“I’ll pay,” she says, motioning to the counter. JJ shakes his head.

 

“Already got it,” he says.

 

She still smiles. She stands there for a second, hovering. “I need some time in my own space after this. But we’re still friends, all right? Don’t get that confused.”

 

JJ nods. “I’m sorry,” he says, because he can’t stop saying it. He feels all the _sorry_ s he’s said clustering in his head, a dark knot, tangled but needing only one sharp cut – _snip!_ – to set them free. Problem is, he doesn’t have the scissors to solve that problem. Bella stands across the table and JJ thinks she is going to leave. Leave, _really_ leave -- but then she leans back over the table to JJ, hand on the side of his face.

 

“If you don’t forgive me, that’s – I – I deserve it anyways,” JJ chokes out, quietly, as Bella seems to be caught in a moment of decision.

 

“Oh JJ,” she says, "I forgive you, and I think . . . I think you’ve done your best.” JJ looks into her grey-blue eyes, maybe this close for the last time, and then she kisses his cheek.

 

And then she stands up and does her little finger-wave and turns for the door, and JJ’s fixed on the steps she takes, one foot after the other. Leaving.

 

JJ sits there with his coffee still half-full and watches her leave.

 

The little bell hanging above the door jingles as it closes behind her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi sciencemakedrugtho on tumblr, maybe pass me some Kleenex for my soul cause idk why I do this to myself


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